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As part of our commitment to support open and reproducible research, we are announcing a new Research Publication Policy. This is to help Researchers retain the rights over their work.

The policy has been developed working collaboratively with the other institutions in the N8 Research Partnership, the strategic alliance of the North's eight research intensive universities. Under this consortia-wide agreement, each university has updated or published policies to implement a Rights Retention Approach to publishing scholarly articles. The policy was approved by Senate following a university-wide consultation and will apply to all scholarly articles submitted for publication from 1 April 2023.

Supporting Researchers

The Research Publication Policy will mean Authors’ articles can be made immediately available for all from the date of publication. This will allow authors access to a broader readership with all the potential benefits for increasing the chance of citation, future collaboration opportunities both within and outside academia, and opportunities for breaking down barriers to generate wider impact.

Our authors can continue to select the most appropriate journal for their research to be published in. For funded authors, the policy will ensure they retain sufficient rights to be able comply with the open access requirements set by their funder.

Benefitting the public

Speaking about the Policy, Professor Colin Bain, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), said;   “Our Research Publication Policy will support our research community in retaining the rights in their own scholarly articles. It recognises that it is funders, not publishers, who stipulate regulations for grant awards; and it is universities, not publishers, who provide the environment which allows research to take place. Our new policy also supports our obligation as a charity and a publicly-funded institution to ensure that the knowledge created by the University benefits the public.” 

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